Growth Mindset Plan - Teaching Through Learning (PDF)

Growth Mindset Plan David Kimball Growth Mindset Importance My first inclination is to give a bunch of educational gobbledygook writing that will sound incredibly good but not make much sense at the point of implementation. And that is the point, I think. Could it be that the way classes are usually conducted (does not necessarily meant taught) has perpetuated a fixed mindset in students? Sure worth a bit of pondering. Education is premised on the belief that if you reward something you get more of the behavior you want and if you punish something, you get less of the behavior you want. We reward the top performers and ignore the lower ones. Indeed, research proved this to be correct … well, with a caveat. It only worked on mechanical skills. However, basic cognitive skills gained nothing from this incentivized system. It actually led to power performance. Huh? Yep, the reverse holds true. Those with higher cognitive ability need no incentive to get higher, while those with lower proven thinking ability thrived with a reason to learn. People want challenge and mastery, and be able to make a contribution. It is as simple as that. I have seen it over and over again with my own students. This is called the purpose motive.1 Let students have a say so in using their own creativity to prove they have learned the material. What would that look like? Start off small with one topic or assignment and see what happens. Maybe they will write a creative story or create a multimedia tutorial. OK, now we are meshing a bit with the COVA learning approach alluded to in my Learning Manifesto. And they do in a way for as we provide more “near win” opportunities for our students, they will begin to expand their tunnel vision fixed mindset attitude of “I can’t” to doing it. I have seen it. Jovanna was a student of mine who had an incredibly bad attitude about school and had fixed her mind that it all was “too hard.” It took a lot of near wins along the way to drill into her that learning how to learn, analyze, think, and discuss will bring her academic success. Jovanna’s biggest realization during her brain busting oral questions on the material she learned is to not overthink things but trust the learning process given to her. The fruit? As I write this, she is sitting with another student who has an incredibly bad attitude about school and has fixed his mind that it is “not worth it.” 1Pink, D. (2010, April 01). RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. Retrieved December 12, 2018, from https://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc  Because she is a peer, Jovanna is able to say things to him that I want to but cannot. There is one statement she made to him that stood out: “It is possible. You just have to get your head in the game.” Jovanna has successfully moved from a fixed to a growth mindset and is now influencing others to do the same. This is proof positive of why teaching our students (and ourselves) about the growth mindset is so important. This little story about Jovanna hit the four steps to incorporate a growth mindset as outlined by Carol Dweck and speaks to the impactfulness of often promoting a growth mindset in myself, 2 fellow teachers, and students. I have an mp3 excerpt from a podcast I listen to that speaks to the importance of a growth mindset. It is a great summary in story form. Incorporating The Four Steps Step 1: Learn to hear your "fixed" mindset voice. Step 2: Recognize that you have a choice. Step 3: Talk back to it with a growth mindset voice. Step 4: Take the growth mindset action. How do you best incorporate a growth mindset in what you do? Peeling back all of the layers reveals that your decision to is at the core. Decide that wanting more is important and then taking the initiative to develop a plan to change. Yes, I know, that is all better said than done; how about examples to help our students develop in themselves a growth mindset, which moves us from our fixed mindset about their capabilities? The infographic to the right there are ten ways to incorporate the Four Steps to a growth mindset. Print it out and take it one strategie at a time. 3 Incorporating just one or two of them in our everyday teaching cannot but help us as a teacher and our students, which will reap incredible dividends. 2 Dweck, C. (2014, October 09). Developing a Growth Mindset with Carol Dweck. Retrieved December 12, 2018, from https://youtu.be/hiiEeMN7vbQ 3Guido, M. (2018, May 04). 10 Ways to Instill a Growth Mindset in Students | Prodigy. Retrieved December 12, 2018, from https://www.prodigygame.com/blog/growth-mindset-in-students/  Communicating “Yet” A mental bridge needs to be built from cannot to can, and that bridge is a word that is incredibly powerful and self-motivating. I cannot do this …. yet. I will not be able to … yet. There is no way to understand this … yet. I cannot learn this concept … yet. I see it time and time again with my students. Adding this little word to the end of the complaining statement gets them to think and forces (at least momentarily) a brain discussion with themselves. Another “bridge” would be when. When you are willing. When you have the skills. When you believe you can. My goal is to use these phrases in every “stuck” situation and eventually I figure they (and me) will say it themselves/myself on our own. That is my plan and I am sticking to it. Resources to Use 1. Developing a Growth Mindset by Carol Dweck. 2. The 10 Good Strategies infographic. 3. Various Carol Dweck and Ted Talk videos. 4. My own motivation, experience, and desire to do better. 5. This Growth Mindset Plan as it will become a repository for found success strategies and lessons learned.  Frequency of Use I am intrigued by the success stories Mrs. Dweck gave the talk I referenced earlier and drives me to find out more details of exactly what methods those teachers used and then incorporate them into both my own teaching and when I get into difficult situations in the DLL program, which there have already been and I am sure will be more. Which means the frequency of use is daily, one strategy mastery at a time. Just in these last few days, I have used the words fixed and growth mindset with a couple of my students as I was discussing their knowledge and ability to learn the content in a way that is meaningful to them. It opened the eyes of both of them and got them really thinking, even bringing one to tears because of how stuck she has been. I am going to use it more and try to create content or find resources for them to help them (and me) to get over our own fixed mindset hurdles to drive us to better success. The Bottom Line There is a fond saying among those older than me that I have ignored for years. The older I get, the more I realize how much I do not know. Like in any job, years of teaching can put you in a rut without realizing it. That rut for me has been a fixed mindset about the way students should learn. Oh, I believed they could learn in different ways but never put it into practice because “it will never work.” Completing this Growth Mindset Plan has forced me to come to grips with this. My original goal was to create a plan to help my students get over their mindset. However, I now come to the stark realization that it is also me who needs to as well if I have a chance of helping my students.